Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Pilot, Publisher Die in Plane Crash at Pope Field, Camp Bragg, Aug. 23, 1923

Newspaperman Loses His Life at Ft. Bragg. . . Sgt. Edward Reece of New York Also Dead—Plane in a Nose Drive—Machine Crashes Immediately After Taking Off and Is Destroyed by Fire

Pope Field, Camp Bragg, Aug. 20—Alfred De Mesquita of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Durham, N.C., publisher of the Durham Sun and the Fayetteville Ob server, and an army aviator, Sgt. Edward Reece, were killed here late this afternoon when an aeroplane crashed with them. Sgt. Reece was from New York City.

The plane is said to have gone into a nose dive just after taking off the ground. Both men are said to have been instantly killed and the plane was destroyed by fire. The plane was privately owned, it is said, but a board of inquiry has been appointed to investigate the accident.

New York, Aug. 20—Alfred De Mesquita, one of the two men killed today in an airplane accident at People Field, Camp Bragg, N.C., was the son of J.B. De Mesquita, treasurer of the American Safety Razor Company, Brooklyn.

The accident occurred while Sergeant Reece was piloting the plane outside of duty hours with De Mesquita as a passenger. So far as known there were no eye-witnesses to the fall of the ship and nothing whatever is known as to the cause of the accident. The plane is supposed to have reached an altitude of about 1,000 feet.

From the front page of the Lincoln County News, Lincolnton, N.C., Aug. 23, 1923

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